Tom Moore has set up the Machine Phase blog to chronicle his nanotechnology adventures designing molecular machines using the NanoEngineer-1 software from Nanorex. Read the whole thing starting on March 3 in the archives. Some of the images are still shots; others turn into animations when you click on them. It’s quite impressive considering that he reports starting with a six-year-old Toshiba laptop. About his March 18 animation of a small bearing:

If you click on the picture of this bearing and shaft it will open a new window with some animation of it turning. Right now I have a simulation of the pinion gear, middle gear and cnt bushing running on the other computer. I have a feeling this version will be more stable. When it’s finished I am thinking about posting an animated gif of it; however I am not sure if I made the simulation long enough to be interesting.

This is pretty technical stuff. But to laypeople and techies alike, it should be impressive that this kind of work can now be done at home. For highly impressive professional designs, see the Nanorex Gallery. —Christine

Looks like the world is one step closer to being able to create these devices: positional assembly has been achieved. Credit goes to NanoTrends for the link on Slashdot’s Firehose. He says:

The new technique utilizes mechanical force to alter the course of chemical reactions and yield products not obtainable through conventional conditions.

This provides more clear evidence that the concept of site specific chemistry using mechanical placement of molecules is viable. This concept is the basis of molecular nanotechnology. This may become part of a bootstrapping pathway. It disproves those who have said mechanical force could not be used to control chemistry.

I thought that the WTO would be a good start for transforming the process of government at least across national borders. I quite like the idea of using the secretariat of the WTO as the centre for a Wikipedia of trade – a sort of open source world government at least for a very specific and complicated issue which needs many brains to provide a solution.